Response to "We are Somebody"

Every individual is defined by natural right, not civil polity. I am a citizen of the United States by virtue of my birth, yet the rights I retain as a citizen and as a human being descend justly from

I am a human being because I have been endowed with rights by a Creator, not because of my status in a state.

Those living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are somebodies, not just one collective mass. There is no freedom or identity for groups.

Despite the growing clamor for a Palestinian state, the move does not spring exclusively from a desire to establish an identity, or for a nation of refugees to be defined as "somebody."

The only ones treating the "Palestinians" as non-persons are those who insist on the eradication of Israel as a precondition of peace in the Middle East. As of now, resident of the West Bank enjoy more peace and prosperity under Israeli jurisdiction than if they were to form their own separate nation-state.

On the contrary, the terrorist groups running the government in the West Bank and Gaza have predicated their identity on the eradication of Israel. This does not sit well with the Israelis, to be sure; yet to assume that if only those terrorists would renounce violence and work for a two-state solution would be to requires these groups to disband and regroup entirely, a move hardly likely to occur since this identity is suffused with religious zealotry.

Contrary to Mr. Repohl's contention, the United States does not have a contradictory position on Israel and the "peace process". President Obama certainly does, who is veering from right to left in fostering peace at any cost. However, such peace at such a price is too high to pay.

Besides, what business does the United States government having directing the Middle Eastern parties on promoting peace? Israel is a sovereign nation, including its political authority in the West Bank. Does the world want to see the entire region East of Jerusalem descend into the same immoral anarchy now erupting throughout the Gaza Strip?



Of course Israeli settlements continue to grow. As far as I am aware, Jewish settlers have a right to build Jewish settlements on Jewish territory.

Mahmoud Abbas may play the part of a civilized diplomat, but he plays both sides of the fence just as subtly as Yasser Arafat did, preaching moderation to the world, extremism to his own people. This division is not the only split cause of disruption in the region. The would-be Palestinian state is uncompromisingly divided by a huge patch of Israel in between.

Pundits on the left and the right continue pointing out that if only Hamas would "reject violence and embrace a two-state solution," yet the very identity of this terrorist group is predicated on the eradication of Israel.

At what point will the world community, including to the United States, reconcile themselves to the tragic fact that as long as Israel exists in the Middle East, terrorist and fundamentalist groups will never broker peace nor agree to a two-state solution. Instilling religious tolerance is a matter far beyond the capacities of state-to-state diplomacy.